Ok, I think we’re defining the Democratic base differently. I’m not advocating pandering to the left (if by left, you mean Kucinich and leftwards).
Funny how there were so few such calls last November. From this side of the Pond, it seems like the Democrats are bad losers.
Anyway, if Hillary Clinton gets the nomination, then, absent a miracle, I reckon the Democrats will lose. I will refrain from using the ungentlemanly language required to describe her, but the floating voters who decide each election will see it. Unless she chooses Barack Obama as her running mate. I look at Obama and he has something of the air of JFK. Equally, I see similarities between Obama and David Cameron, the leader of the Tories in the U.K.
I generally think of everything leftward of the Democratic Leadership Council as “the left.”
Like what?
He’s young, he’s charismatic. He’s fresh, he’s new. He made a good speech at a conference and got momentum from there.
Do you expect him to be P.M. after the next election? (From what I’ve heard, none of the three major parties are very popular right now.)
No, it’s more about personal style and social conventions. For instance, voters are much less likely to describe a female candidate as “someone they could have a beer with”. Is that because, as your argument implies, female candidates are less likely to have values in common with the voters, or is it primarily just because women are still much less likely than men to go out beer-drinking as a casual social activity?
The various personality/etiquette issues involved in the assessment of “someone you could have a beer with” just create too much noise in the signal to make it a plausible metric for candidates’ actual values or political principles.
The GOP won the presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 in part because of masterful exploitation of wedge issues.
Which wedge issue could the GOP possibly use to win in 2008?
Iraq is a mess, moderates are becoming uneasy with what the Supreme Court could do to abortion rights, and the hatred of faggotry has (in my mind) peaked.
Taxes, maybe? Pose the threat that a Dem prez will roll back W’s tax cuts and – gasp! – balance the budget! :eek:
I used to be called a conservative Democrat, and I’m apparently to the left of the DLC. At least I think I am. Or I’m a neo-liberal. Or a radical centrist. I’ve given up trying to apply these terms coherently.
So Kimstu the pollsters instead ask, as they did back in January, “Who would you rather have dinner with?”
Hard science it aint. But that gut reaction to a person, the intangible “likability factor”, is possibly a better judge of shared values than much else of what we have to go on. We usually like people we trust and who we believe that we share values with. Note: that poll was in January. Since then HRC’s likability score has gone down in all groups, including those that make up her strongest base.
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Get an isolationist, strong defense Republican. Someone who runs like Nixon did - end the war honorably and bring the troops home. While Nixon did not do that, that was a core part of his campaign and it worked. “We will end the war honorably, the Democrats think that we already lost.”
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Gun control will continue to motivate that segment. The Dems are smart to avoid it, but Hillary can be hurt on that subject in swing states. All the NRA has to ask is “do you trust Hillary with your guns?”
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Taxes, of course. “The economy is turning around, why would you want to kill it.”
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Nationalized health care. While there is strong movement towards the US being better, this one is wide open to exploitation and fear mongering. “Do you want Washington DC deciding when you get to see a doctor?” Remember, the ones who really need nationalized health do not vote.
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Immigration. The Big I. Both sides will be pushed on this one, and it could get interesting. Obama can be played as the face of immigration. Will anyone stand up on this issue?
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Supreme Court. The Kelo decision was put down by the left wing of the court. “Do you want Hillary to appoint more justices who do not believe in your private property rights?”
Now - these are all bumper sticker lines that can easily shredded by SDMB. However, that does not mean that they can not be used easily by the Republicans to try to mobilize their base. As long as the Republicans can successfully campaign away from Bush, they have a chance. Add in the usual Democrat circular firing squad, and you have a possible Republican upset.
Hillary is open for swift-boating, or whatever we want to call this season’s dirty tricks. All of the foibles of her husband will be used against her, plus any missteps she has made on her own. I know left-wing women who do not want to vote for her. They won’t vote Republican, but they will stay home rather than cast a vote for her.
Obama brings his own baggage as a young, first-termer who is black. That only has to impact a few votes to make a difference in a swing state. Tar him with a Muslim brush perhaps - I am sure we can find pictures of him with Nation of Islam folks. That will convince a few of the anti-Arab crowd. Accurate? Of course not, but we are talking elections here not academic debate.
Here’s an interesting fact I learned today:
John Edwards has raised more than twice as much campaign cash in the South as any of the Republican candidates. To me this suggests that the South is less than enchanted with the Republican field so far. (That could change if Fred Thompson enters the race.)
So it seems to me that if the Republican candidate emerges from the current field, the “solid South” could be not-so-solid for the GOP. Particularly if Edwards (or maybe Gore) gets the Democratic nomination. Possibly even Obama at the top might be able to peel off a Southern state. (I don’t think Hillary could pull it off, though, regardless of who the GOP candidate may be.)
I’m afraid the only one available is Pat Buchanan, and he’s not really a Pub any more, and in any case is only slightly more electable than David Duke.
I think any of them could switch without too much pain. It would only take a willingness to claim that they thought the original war was good, and that now that more has come into play they do not think that this is a good use of US boys’ lives.
“We will triple the resources in training Iraqi forces so that we can leave. It only takes ~5 months to make a Marine, we should be able to do this within a year.”